


Death Is But a Dream

by LostUnderTheSurface



Category: Batman (Comics)
Genre: Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-25
Updated: 2016-09-25
Packaged: 2018-08-17 04:56:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 485
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8131204
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LostUnderTheSurface/pseuds/LostUnderTheSurface
Summary: He looks at himself in the mirror and smiles.
The face of a killer smirks back.





	

He thinks it about sometimes. Imagines what it would feel like to do it with his own two hands.

The aftermath is what comes to mind first. The blood. The gore. The sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. The judgments hissing in his ears. The weight of disapproval hanging on him like a shroud.

_But oh, how sweet the taste of vengeance would be._

He has every right to do it. It's a man's duty to protect his family, it is. Ensure the safety of the ones he cares about, put the hurt on whoever hurt them first. He could hardly call himself a man if he didn't do his very best to keep his loved ones away from....well, not away from harm. Not with their lifestyles. But avenged, anyway. An even score. That's only fair, right?

He likes to think the others would appreciate if he did it.

_They wouldn't_.

He likes to think they'd greet him with gratitude if he came home with blood-soaked clothes and a rust-stained crowbar. Poetic justice and all.

_But they've never been the poetic kinds._

He imagines in vivid detail exactly how he would do it. Not with a gun. _Too clean._ Not with knives. _Too messy._. No, he sees his hands around a scrawny throat, his fingers digging into pallid flesh, blood welling up around the broken skin. And then...

_A twist._

So simple. So quick.

_Crack!_

And the body falls limp in his arms. The head is bent at an unnatural angle, the crimson lips are parted in a last, hysterical gasp of laughter. Green hair flutters limply as he releases the corpse and stands, trembling and triumphant, spattered with the evidence of the execution.

_So much blood. So much death._

He could end it all. He could save their future selves from any further suffering. He could do it.

He could feel terrible afterward, he tells himself. The guilt would be overwhelming.

_We don't kill._

But the thought of doing it is sweet, so very sweet. Tempting, oh how tempting!

He tells himself he'll never do it. Tells himself how disappointed the others would be. Tells himself it wouldn't be worth the repercussions. Tells himself the psychological damage would be irreparable. Tells himself the end result wouldn't be any better than what they have now.

_But he thinks about it._

It creeps into his mind, whispers in his thoughts, fills his dreaming hours with nightmares. He pushes it aside, and it slides back in, smiling and waving with bloody hands. It knows his weaknesses, his tender spots, his intimate fears and hopes. It wants him to embrace it like an old friend and welcome it into his home to stay.

_And the longer he thinks it, the more familiar it becomes. The more reasonable it becomes._

He looks at himself in the mirror and smiles.

The face of a killer smirks back.

**Author's Note:**

> Your pick as to which Batfamily member is thinking these morbid thoughts.
> 
> Closing lines inspired by Anthony Horowitz's "The Man With the Yellow Face", from Horowitz Horror.


End file.
